


Robin's Song

by UchiHime



Category: Batman (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 03:18:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8234224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UchiHime/pseuds/UchiHime
Summary: For years, singing had been his comfort and it was not something he was willing to let go of.





	

It started as a comfort for a little boy wandering the empty halls of a too large house in the middle of the night. No matter how much he told himself that he was strong and brave, when every door he opened searching for company led to another empty room, every shadow around the corner looked like a monster, every creak of the settling foundation and scratch of a tree on a nearby window sounded like footsteps or war drums, he was scared and his little comforts were all he had.

It wasn’t his first choice. At first he sneak into his father’s rarely used office and he’d slide a record from the collection on one of the lower shelves. He’d put it on the phonograph and curl up in his father’s chair. The chair was so large that Tim could lay on the seat with his knees pulled up to his chest and rest comfortably with room left over, or maybe Tim was just so small. He’d fall asleep to the sound of jazz bands and symphonies, blues and operas. 

Those were the days of Nanny June. She was a freshman at Gotham University and Tim’s parents were basically paying her tuition so that she would stay at their house for days and weeks at a time and take care of Tim while they were out of the country. She was nice enough. She’d make his breakfast, but let him get himself ready in the morning, she’d drop him off at his kindergarten before her morning classes, pick him up and take him to playgroup before her afternoon classes, make him dinner at let him watch cartoons before bath and bed. On weekends, she’d take him to the park and they’d always stop by the candy store and she’d let him pick out one treat. The problem was, after Tim had fallen asleep, she’d sneak out the house to cruise around town with her boyfriend, so when Tim woke in the middle of the night there was no one home with him.

Tim’s parents had caught a late flight one night and returned home at somewhere around 2AM. Jack had burst into his office and startled Tim while he was trying to change the record on the phonograph. Tim had fumbled the record in his hands and it had dropped to the hardwood floor and the vinyl had shattered. Jack had not been pleased. It wasn’t that he actually listened to any of the hundreds of records he owned, it was a status thing. A man of their means was expected to have a hobby and Jack had chosen record collecting as his. Nanny June was fired not so much for leaving Tim alone as for letting Tim having free rein of Jack’s office.

When Jack and Janet left for their next trip, Tim would wander the halls at night and find the door to Jack’s office locked. Nanny Bette was old to the point that she probably needed someone to care for her more than she needed to be caring for a child. Tim entered her room, and though she was home, she wouldn’t wake for anything softer than a rooster’s crow. Without the music of the phonograph to fill the silence of the empty halls and with Nanny Bette unable to keep him company, Tim relied on his own voice.

It started with the silly little songs and nursery rhymes they taught at kindergarten and playgroup. When he ran out of them, he’d sing the songs from the records he no longer had access to. Eventually he started to make up his own songs. At first just nonsensical little tunes about the things around him, eventually softly sang stories about mother’s coming him to kiss their sons goodnight and sad little ballads about lonely boys who just wanted to be loved.

For years, Tim sang his feelings, his joys and devastations, all his highs and lows. He learned that putting it to a rhythm helped him remember abstract concepts he learned in school and he recalled the information from books better when he turned the tale into an epic battlesong.

When the Graysons fell, Tim sung their dirge, though no one was around to hear it.

Nanny Bette failed to pick Tim up from school one day and Tim had to traverse the streets of Gotham all by himself only to reach home to find that Nanny Bette wasn’t there either. Three days later, Nanny Bette’s daughter finally called and told Tim that she’s put her mother in a nursing home in Metropolis so she wouldn’t be able to look after him anymore. 

There was no new nanny after her. Instead there was a car service that took him to and from school and a weekly allowance of more money than any responsible child could spend and assurances that Tim was a big boy more than capable to taking care of himself.

Tim allowed himself two arguable frivolous purchases: a portable music player and a camera. With those in hand, Tim took to the rooftops at night to watch Batman and Robin in action. When he was shivering on an empty rooftop waiting to get a good shot, Tim would sing softly to himself. When he was developing his pictures in his darkroom, Tim would sing louder. 

When Batman accepted him as Robin, the halls of the Drake house rang with the song of his joy.

For years, singing had been his comfort and it was not something he’d ever let go of. He wrote the soundtrack of his own training montage. When the anticipation of a high stress situation got him worked up, singing calmed him. Boring stakeouts were made better by a song. And long patrols always had a musical accompaniment. He barely realized he was doing it anymore and sometimes he’d get so into what else he was doing, he’d completely forget to keep his voice down.

A few months after he becomes Robin, Dick sends him the link of a video some girl had posted on YouTube saying “someone’s singing on my roof, and he sounds pretty good.” It’s taken from an angle that makes him appear as nothing more than a shadowy blob, but the voice is clear and unmistakably his own and then Tim leaps from the room and the unmistakable flash of a yellow lined cape passes in front of the camera and the girl screams “oh my god! It’s Robin!”

Her’s was just the first video. Apparently it had become a game for the citizens of Gotham to try to catch videos of #SingingRobin or #RockinRobin. There was a Buzzfeed article about it and an entire tumblr dedicated to it. And it moved beyond Gotham when Tim joined up with Young Justice and the Teen Titans.

It was ironic. Tim used to be the one hiding in weird places with a camera watching Robin and Batman. Now he was the Robin everyone else was trying to catch on camera. Dick loved the whole thing, though he complained that Tim had never sung for him and it wasn’t fair. He sent Tim the link to every new video he found. Jason found it all hilarious and teased Tim about it every chance he got. Though, a couple of the videos submitted to the tumblr were taken in such a way that none other than Red Hood could have recorded them. Bruce warned him to be careful that his singing wouldn’t give away his location on stakeouts and patrols.

When Robin was caught in a collapsed building with a bunch of schoolkids, the video of him calmly singing to soothe the upset children as he worked to get them all out, went viral not just in Gotham and the US, but the entire world over.


End file.
